NASA's senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is departing "Cape Tribulation," a crater-rim segment it has explored since late 2014, southbound for its next destination, "Perseverance Valley."

The rover team plans observations in the valley to determine what type of fluid activity carved it billions of years ago: water, wind, or flowing debris lubricated by water.

A color panorama of a ridge called "Rocheport" provides both a parting souvenir of Cape Tribulation and also possible help for understanding the valley ahead. The view was assembled from multiple images taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera.

"The degree of erosion at Rocheport is fascinating," said Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis. "Grooves run perpendicular to the crest line. They may have been carved by water or ice or wind. We want to see as many features like this on the way to Perseverance Valley as we can, for comparison with what we find there."

Perseverance Valley is about two football fields long. It cuts downward west to east across the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The crater is about 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter, with a segmented rim that exposes the oldest rocks ever investigated in place on Mars. Opportunity has less than four football fields' distance of driving to reach the top of the valley after departing Cape Tribulation, a raised segment about 3 miles (5 kilometers) long on the crater's western rim.

In 68 months since reaching Endeavour Crater, Opportunity has explored "Cape York," "Solander Point" and "Murray Ridge" before reaching Cape Tribulation about 30 months ago. "Cape Byron," the next raised segment to the south, contains Perseverance Valley and is separated from Tribulation by a gap of flatter ground.

Five drives totaling about 320 feet (98 meters) since the beginning of April have brought Opportunity to a boundary area where Cape Tribulation meets the plain surrounding the crater.

Cape Tribulation has been the site of significant events in the mission. There, in 2015, Opportunity surpassed a marathon-race distance of total driving since its 2004 landing on Mars. It climbed to the highest-elevation viewpoint it has reached on Endeavour's rim. In a region of Tribulation called "Marathon Valley," it investigated outcrops containing clay minerals that had been detected from orbit. There were some name-appropriate Tribulation experiences, as well. The rover team has coped with loss of reliability in Opportunity's non-volatile "flash" memory since 2015. With flash memory unavailable, each day's observations are lost if not radioed homeward the same day.

"From the Cape Tribulation departure point, we'll make a beeline to the head of Perseverance Valley, then turn left and drive down the full length of the valley, if we can," Arvidson said. "It's what you would do if you were an astronaut arriving at a feature like this: Start at the top, looking at the source material, then proceed down the valley, looking at deposits along the way and at the bottom."

Clues to how the valley was carved could come from the arrangement of different sizes of rocks and gravel in the deposits.

He said, "If it was a debris flow, initiated by a little water, with lots of rocks moving downhill, it should be a jumbled mess. If it was a river cutting a channel, we may see gravel bars, crossbedding, and what's call a 'fining upward' pattern of sediments, with coarsest rocks at the bottom." Another pattern that could be evidence of flowing water would be if elongated pieces of gravel in a deposited bed tend to be stacked leaning in the same direction, providing a record of the downstream flow direction.

Now more than 13 years into a mission originally scheduled to last three months on Mars, Opportunity remains unexpectedly capable of continued exploration. It has driven about four-tenths of a mile (two-thirds of a kilometer) since the start of 2017, bringing the total traverse so far to 27.6 miles (44.4 kilometers). The current season on Mars is past the period when global dust storms might arise and curtail Opportunity's solar power.

Opportunity and the next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, as well as three active NASA Mars orbiters, and surface missions to launch in 2018 and 2020 are all part of a legacy of robotic exploration which is helping to lay the groundwork for sending humans there in the 2030s. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, built Opportunity and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about Opportunity, visit:

Martian desert on the horizonA grooved ridge called "Rocheport" on the rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater spans this scene from the Pancam on NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.

Attached second image:

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This image shows segments of the western rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater. NASA's Mars rover Opportunity has explored parts of the rim since 2011. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA has released the first high-resolution aerial color image of the Opportunity rover’s landing site on a sprawling Martian plain, where the airbag-cushioned robot fortuitously rolled into a Eagle Crater in January 2004, putting its scientific instruments face-to-face with a block of sedimentary rock that gave ground teams confirmation Mars was once a warmer, wetter, and habitable planet.

You should think it would make sense to build quite a few more of those rovers, with just a few basic updates to solar cells, batteries and cameras, and plop them down on various locations on Mars. I cannot think it will ever be possible to make a more economical design (in view of the amazing longevity of Opportunity and to a slightly lesser extent Spirit).

You should think it would make sense to build quite a few more of those rovers, with just a few basic updates to solar cells, batteries and cameras, and plop them down on various locations on Mars. I cannot think it will ever be possible to make a more economical design (in view of the amazing longevity of Opportunity and to a slightly lesser extent Spirit).

There are problems with that idea:

First of all, what would they all do? What's the science that they would do that scientists want doing?

Second, more rovers requires more DSN time and more relays.

Third, more rovers means more science teams. Where are you going to get all those people? And you have to fund them. It's not just the machine, it's all the people that go with the machine.

Fourth, many of the vendors that built equipment for those rovers no longer exist. You would have to do a lot differently.

Finally, the MER rovers were built rather fast and with limited documentation. There was no set of complete blueprints. That was one of the things that tripped people up in later years when they wanted to propose new rovers--they couldn't do it easily or inexpensively using the MER design.

If you are going to talk about landing multiple things on Mars, a good place to start is by asking what those things would do. In the past there have been proposals for a network of seismic sensors on Mars as well as a network of meteorological sensors on Mars. InSight is a single seismic sensor because a proposal for a 3-sensor network proved too expensive. A set of meteorological sensors could fit on smaller spacecraft (Beagle 2 size), but even multiple small reentry vehicles are expensive.

Also many of the instruments could be done better, albeit often with 2020 hindsight. The Mossbauer was not particularly useful and had a very limited working life for example. The MiniTES was hampered by too wide a field of view, although its ability to collect mineralogy data was very valuable. Having a separate Navcam may have been excessive redundancy.

"There is nobody who is a bigger fan of sending robots to Mars than me... But I believe firmly that the best, the most comprehensive, the most successful exploration will be done by humans" Steve Squyres

I think you identify two issues: 1-the advance of technology, and 2-hindsight. Certainly our technology is better today. It has been almost 20 years since much of that design was locked down. But as you note, getting something into the field exposes its strengths and limitations. You can figure out how to do things better.

Take the discussion in a different direction: assuming a clean-sheet rover design designed to be cheaper, could you perform valuable science with it for the cost, especially in larger numbers of rovers? Certainly you could perform valuable science, because every new place you land and explore is new, and therefore useful. But the science community is interested in answering some bigger questions, not simply adding data points.

Chris Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

I think you identify two issues: 1-the advance of technology, and 2-hindsight. Certainly our technology is better today. It has been almost 20 years since much of that design was locked down. But as you note, getting something into the field exposes its strengths and limitations. You can figure out how to do things better.

Take the discussion in a different direction: assuming a clean-sheet rover design designed to be cheaper, could you perform valuable science with it for the cost, especially in larger numbers of rovers? Certainly you could perform valuable science, because every new place you land and explore is new, and therefore useful. But the science community is interested in answering some bigger questions, not simply adding data points.

It's often the data from new places that enables you to answer the bigger questions. Plus giving the contextural knowledge than enable to to know what are the bigger questions to ask.

Logged

"There is nobody who is a bigger fan of sending robots to Mars than me... But I believe firmly that the best, the most comprehensive, the most successful exploration will be done by humans" Steve Squyres

“The walkabout is designed to look at what’s just above Perseverance Valley,” said Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis. “We see a pattern of striations running east-west outside the crest of the rim.”

A portion of the crest at the top of Perseverance Valley has a broad notch. Just west of that, elongated patches of rocks line the sides of a slightly depressed, east-west swath of ground, which might have been a drainage channel billions of years ago.

“We want to determine whether these are in-place rocks or transported rocks,” Arvidson said. “One possibility is that this site was the end of a catchment where a lake was perched against the outside of the crater rim. A flood might have brought in the rocks, breached the rim and overflowed into the crater, carving the valley down the inner side of the rim. Another possibility is that the area was fractured by the impact that created Endeavour Crater, then rock dikes filled the fractures, and we’re seeing effects of wind erosion on those filled fractures.”

In the hypothesis of a perched lake, the notch in the crest just above Perseverance Valley may have been a spillway. Weighing against that hypothesis is an observation that the ground west of the crest slopes away, not toward the crater. The science team is considering possible explanations for how the slope might have changed.

A variation of the impact-fracture hypothesis is that water rising from underground could have favored the fractures as paths to the surface and contributed to weathering of the fracture-filling rocks.

Close examination of the rock piles along the edges of the possible channel might help researchers evaluate these and other possible histories of the site. Meanwhile, the team is analyzing stereo images of Perseverance Valley, taken from the rim, to plot Opportunity’s route. The valley extends down from the crest into the crater at a slope of about 15 to 17 degrees for a distance of about two football fields.

I think you identify two issues: 1-the advance of technology, and 2-hindsight. Certainly our technology is better today. It has been almost 20 years since much of that design was locked down. But as you note, getting something into the field exposes its strengths and limitations. You can figure out how to do things better.

Take the discussion in a different direction: assuming a clean-sheet rover design designed to be cheaper, could you perform valuable science with it for the cost, especially in larger numbers of rovers? Certainly you could perform valuable science, because every new place you land and explore is new, and therefore useful. But the science community is interested in answering some bigger questions, not simply adding data points.

It's often the data from new places that enables you to answer the bigger questions. Plus giving the contextural knowledge than enable to to know what are the bigger questions to ask.

[I missed this back when it was posted]

The Mars community has spoken on this and they've been pretty clear. There is not much disagreement over their goals.

I think you identify two issues: 1-the advance of technology, and 2-hindsight. Certainly our technology is better today. It has been almost 20 years since much of that design was locked down. But as you note, getting something into the field exposes its strengths and limitations. You can figure out how to do things better.

Take the discussion in a different direction: assuming a clean-sheet rover design designed to be cheaper, could you perform valuable science with it for the cost, especially in larger numbers of rovers? Certainly you could perform valuable science, because every new place you land and explore is new, and therefore useful. But the science community is interested in answering some bigger questions, not simply adding data points.

It's often the data from new places that enables you to answer the bigger questions. Plus giving the contextural knowledge than enable to to know what are the bigger questions to ask.

[I missed this back when it was posted]

The Mars community has spoken on this and they've been pretty clear. There is not much disagreement over their goals.

Speaking generally mate,not specifically. As a professional scientist of 40 years standing, nearly 20 of that in the "Mars community" I will stand by that opinion. Anyone who thinks that data from new places does not allow you to frame the bigger questions, or even knwo what those bigger questions might be in the first place, hasn't got a clue.

"There is nobody who is a bigger fan of sending robots to Mars than me... But I believe firmly that the best, the most comprehensive, the most successful exploration will be done by humans" Steve Squyres

You should think it would make sense to build quite a few more of those rovers, with just a few basic updates to solar cells, batteries and cameras, and plop them down on various locations on Mars. I cannot think it will ever be possible to make a more economical design (in view of the amazing longevity of Opportunity and to a slightly lesser extent Spirit).

No

A. the EDL design was specific to the 2003. Entry speeds would be too high for other synods. I believe the lower approach speeds occur every 10-14 years.b. The rover is power limited and hence there a limited number of instruments available to it. And hence limited data generated.c. there are DSN limitationsd. More rovers means more science/control teams ($)